Mujahedin Khalq Terror group

Delisting of MKO will boomerang on U.S.

The United States’ recent decision to remove the Mojahedin Khalq Organization from its list of foreign terrorist organizations will have no impact on the public perception of the group as a notorious terrorist entity.

The move was a carbon copy of what the European Union did several years ago, and it is a clear example of the double standards the U.S. government applies in dealing with the issue of terrorism.

Over the past few years, Washington has labeled many Muslim governments and organizations as terrorists, only because of their brave resistance against the hegemonic policies of the West. However, the MKO has admitted that it has killed more than 16,000 innocent citizens and government officials of Iran, and no one can deny that the group is terrorist. The United States’ double standards in dealing with the issue of terrorism and its blatant support for groups like the MKO will certainly encourage other terrorist organizations to expand the scope of their carnage.

However, the Iraqi government recently decided to close down Camp Ashraf, which was the last sanctuary of the MKO on Iraqi soil. The move greatly angered Washington, since U.S. officials had made every effort to save the camp, which many political analysts say is being used as a strategic platform for pressuring the Iranian government and nation. Despite the massive amount of pressure imposed on them by Western governments, the Iraqi people and government stood firm on their legitimate demand and showed that they are opposed to anything that undermines Iraq’s national security.

The amicable and brotherly relationship Iran and Iraq currently enjoy has its roots in the two countries’ common cultural and religious values. Thus, the U.S. decision to delist the MKO is expected to have no impact on these friendly ties. Time will prove that legitimizing the activities of a notorious terrorist group will harm the national interests of the United States more than the interests of any other country.

Hassan Kazemi Qomi formerly served as Iran’s ambassador to Iraq.

By Hassan Kazemi Qomi

October 9, 2012 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

US “Delisting” of Terror Network: Washington overtly supports the MEK

In a flagrant show of hostility toward the Iranian nation and a clear exercise of double standards in dealing with international terrorism, the U.S. Department of State has just removed the name of Mujahedin-e-Khalq Organization (MKO) from its list of foreign terrorist organizations. MKO which was established on September 5, 1965 is a terrorist cult which assisted Saddam Hussein in the 1980s war with Iran and killed more than 40,000 innocent Iranian civilians. It’s also responsible for the assassination of several high-ranking Iranian officials in the first years of the Islamic Revolution and also 5 Iranian nuclear scientists since 2010.

The U.S. government claimed that MKO has not been involved in any terrorist operation in the past 10 years and thus its designation as a foreign terrorist organization should be revoked. This hostile decision by the U.S. government is obviously an attempt aimed at putting more pressure on Iran over its nuclear program with the final objective of persuading Iran to make political concessions. However, the high-ranking MKO officials have constantly declared that their final objective is a regime change in Iran. The Council of the European Union had removed the name of MKO from the EU’s list of terrorist organizations in 2009.

In order to delve on the removal of MKO’s name from the list of foreign terrorist organizations by the U.S. Department of State and its underlying reasons, Iran Review conducted an interview with American journalist and researcher Tony Caralucci.

Tony Cartalucci, is an independent geopolitical researcher based in Bangkok, Thailand. He maintains the Land Destroyer Report blog and is regularly republished across the alternative media. His work has also appeared translated in newspapers from Europe and the Middle East, to Asia and South America. He is currently co-authoring a book with geopolitical analyst and photographer Nile Bowie, titled, “Subverting Syria”.

Cartalucci is one of the informed American sources about the underground activities of the MKO and has written an elaborate article in this regard for the Global Research. What follows is the text of Iran Review’s interview with Tony Cartalucci which was conducted a few days after the U.S. delisted MKO and provoked anger and astonishment across Iran.

Q: Tony Cartalucci, please tell us about the proofs and evidence which are available and attest that the United States and Israel have been funding, equipping and supporting MKO in its anti-Iran operations. I think Seymour Hersh and Glenn Greenwald have extensively written in this regard. Am I right?

A: I am most familiar with Seymour Hersh’s reports. Seymour Hersh, citing those directly involved in U.S. programs to fund, arm, provide intelligence and even training to MKO terrorists, has reported extensively on the group over the years. In 2008, he published an article titled, “Preparing the Battlefield,” and revealed that MKO, still on the U.S. State Department Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) list at the time, was receiving “arms and intelligence, directly or indirectly from the United States.” In a 2012 article Hersh published, titled, “Our Men in Iran?” he reveals that MKO terrorists were actually trained inside the United States as far back as 2002.

Hersh’s 2012 article also reveals that MKO terrorists have been working with Israel in carrying out their attacks within Iran, meaning that while Israel now attempts to convince the world that Iran poses a threat to its existence, Israel itself has been violating the security of Iran for over a decade, carrying out attacks that have killed Iranians and destroyed Iranian infrastructure.

Similar admissions have been made in articles published by the British press. One article from the Daily Mail titled “Mossad Training Terrorists to Kill Iran’s Nuclear Scientists, U.S. Officials Claim,” states that U.S. officials “confirmed” that Israel was behind the MKO terrorists that killed several of Iran’s nuclear scientists.

But perhaps the most damning evidence of all, comes from U.S. policy makers themselves, particularly from within the Fortune 500 funded Brookings Institution in their 2009 report, “Which Path to Persia?” where they fully admit MKO is a terrorist organization. Brookings policy makers stated explicitly that “undeniably, the group has conducted terrorist attacks,” yet MKO was still being considered as a viable “potential U.S. proxy.” Brookings added that, “to work more closely with the group (at least in an overt manner), Washington would need to remove it from the list of foreign terrorist organizations.” And that is just what U.S. politicians, former U.S. military and intelligence officers, and policy makers set out to do, lobby to get MKO delisted from the U.S. State Department’s FTO list.

At one point, during the closing phases of America’s occupation of Iraq, the U.S. literally handed over one of its military bases, “Camp Liberty,” to MKO. The U.S. State Department played a leading role in organizing this handover, again, despite the U.S. State Department itself having the militant group listed on its own foreign terrorist list.

There is no doubt that the United States was for over a decade, using a listed-terrorist organization as an armed proxy against the nation of Iran as part of a wider strategy to destabilize, manipulate, and terrorize its population. This was all done in direct violation of U.S. and international anti-terror laws and understandings. Now that MKO is delisted, we can only expect this support and MKO operations to expand.

Q: What’s your assessment of the U.S. Department of State taking MKO off the list of foreign terrorist organizations? Will this decision help the MKO militants to foster and promote their terrorist operations across Iran and further their plans of destabilizing Iran under the guise of a civilian, peaceful organization?

A: The sole purpose of the U.S. State Department delisting MKO was not because the organization has “reformed” itself in any way or abandoned its terroristic posture, but specifically for the U.S. to foster and promote their terrorist operations across Iran in a more overt manner, just as was prescribed by Brookings policy makers. It was the fulfillment of just one of many long-planned steps toward further destabilizing Iran.

That it occurred during the presidential administration of Barack Obama is important – it illustrates that the West’s agenda is singular and continuous, independent of elections and the alleged political ideologies of sitting presidents. What began as part of the Bush “War on Terror” was carried out to completion under Obama, with the explicit support of his Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton. That policy seems to manifest itself first in corporate-financier funded think tanks like Brookings before being rubber stamped by politicians and sold to the public by the media, gives us a clearer picture of the West’s true power structure and helps us understand better what that true power structure has in store for Iran in the future.

In regards to how MKO will be portrayed to the public, it is unlikely that the organization will exist under the guise of a “civilian, peaceful organization,” but rather will continue a more covert campaign of violence and subversion inside Iran and along its peripheries. The West, because MKO is now delisted, can simply be more liberal in regards to funding and arming it, but will do so still very much out of the view of an easily distracted American public.

If and when the West succeeds at triggering wide scale unrest and/or violence within Iran itself, MKO may be introduced as an armed “pro-democracy” movement just as terrorists operating in Syria have been by the West. MKO’s Paris-based political wing will then be merged into a Western stable of “transitional leaders,” just as has been set up during the Western destabilization of Libya and Syria.

Q: It was on the reports that MKO had invested a great amount of money in lobbying efforts to convince the U.S. government to remove its name from the list of terrorist organizations. Many high-ranking U.S. officials, including the governors of different states, Congressmen and former CIA officials had also supported their bid. Would you please explain more about this?

A: I believe the story of the MKO paying out large amounts of cash to U.S. politicians, former military officers, and lobbyists was an attempt to conceal what is in reality a decades-long conspiracy to use the group as an armed proxy against Iran. By portraying MKO’s American lobbyists as merely financially motivated, the true nature of their duplicity and betrayal to the American people, as well as their true motives, have been obfuscated. Of course, it is the United States that is funding MKO in the first place. Are we then expected to believe they are taking this money and sending it right back to America to lobby for their delisting? Of course not, it was a combination of theater and formalities to preserve in the eyes of stakeholders in the West’s international order, a semblance of “rule of law.”

What many may not know about MKO’s American lobbyists is that many of these men have been the most vocal proponents of the “War on Terror.” This includes former New York City Mayor Rudy Guiliani, former Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge, Howard Dean, Ed Rendell, former FBI director Louis Freeh, retired U.S. Army General Wesley Clark, Lee Hamilton who in fact chaired the 9/11 Commission, and finally, former U.S. Marine Corps Commandant and former-National Security Adviser to President Obama, General James Jones.

It is difficult to fathom why these men, who have built their political careers on decrying terrorism, would come out to support MKO, especially Generals Clark and Jones, when considering MKO has killed U.S. citizens, including 3 high ranking U.S. military officers. MKO had also attempted to kidnap a U.S. ambassador and attempted to assassinate a U.S. Air Force brigadier general.

While one might claim MKO has reformed their ways, even Brookings policy makers seeking to further utilize the organization recognized that they are undoubtedly still involved in terrorism. Such overt, reckless abandonment of even the semblance of “rule of law,” with the U.S. State Department, former civilian and military leaders all brazenly violating their own nation’s laws while simultaneously charged with upholding them, threatens to plunge the entire nation into a crisis of credibility – one that seems to already be having a negative, impeding effect on Western foreign and domestic policy.

Despite America’s attempt at window dressing, with the lobbying and the official “delisting” of MKO, what we have left is still an alleged “Western democracy” funding, arming, and encouraging a terrorist organization.

Q: The U.S. Department of State claimed that the Mujahedin-e-Khalq have not been involved in terrorist operations during the past 10 years. Is this true? Many Iranians firmly believe that the hands of MKO are stained with the blood of five Iranian nuclear scientists in the past two years. Why has the U.S. government ignored and overlooked these atrocities?

A: If the U.S. State Department has claimed MKO has not been involved in terrorist operations during the past 10 years, it may be worth investigating the most recent definition of what the U.S. government claims “terrorist operations” are.

For example, the US State Department’s criteria for listing a group as a terrorist organization now states that the organization must, among other things, threaten the security of U.S. nationals or the national security of the United States. In the past 10 years, MKO does not appear to have attacked any U.S. targets, though, according to the U.S. government’s own definition of what constitutes terrorist activity, MKO is still most certainly engaged in terrorist operations against other nations. Again, U.S. policy makers themselves not only concede this fact, but seek to delist MKO specifically so it can expand its terrorist operations. U.S. officials have openly admitted that MKO, and indeed, even Israel, were both behind the assassinations of Iran’s scientists.

Clearly U.S. policy is underpinned by law written entirely for convenience, free of any enduring, objective principle of justice. These laws betray absolutely the spirit in which the vast majority of Americans believe they were written in when they were first passed. This convenient legal circumvention of America’s principles says a lot about the current state of so-called Western “democracy” we are meant to believe is a morally superior standard to which the entire world must be held.

Q: Doesn’t the decision made by the U.S. government show some kind of a duplicitous and hypocritical approach toward the issue of terrorism? After all, there’s credible evidence showing that MKO has been involved in several assassination attempts and other violent actions. How does Washington justify this move?

A: Washington, for the time being is not really trying to justify this move, but on the most superficial level, at least publicly. Privately, the corporate-financier interests that dictate Washington’s policy have long since justified it as a simple matter of utility and “might makes right.” In other words, in regards to Washington, it is not a topic that will receive much public exposure across the Western media, and it will not be discussed often by Washington’s politicians.

MKO’s activity will remain more or less clandestine in nature – because despite the delisting, they still fully intend to carry out blatant acts of terrorism against Iran – acts that regardless of their legal status in the U.S. won’t and can’t be publicized. A similar regiment of selective reporting can be seen at work with the West’s destabilization of Syria, and with the various terrorist organizations it is supporting there.

Even if the West succeeds at triggering widespread violence and destabilization across Iran, whatever MKO is rolled into, perhaps the “Free Iranian Army,” its terroristic history, the American blood staining its hands, and its atrocities against the civilian population of Iran both past and present will not be discussed by the Western media.

A similar campaign of perception management surrounded Libyan terrorists NATO had funded, armed, trained, and even provided air support for during the Western orchestrated overthrow of the Libyan government in 2011. We were told that these were “pro-democracy” “freedom fighters,” when in reality they were the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), not only a listed U.S. foreign terrorist organization, but listed by the UK as a proscribed terrorist group, and as an official affiliate of Al Qaeda by the United Nations itself. Rarely is LIFG mentioned in the Western media, and when it is, not many details are provided for readers unaware of its history. We can expect MKO to be treated in a similar fashion.

Q: Do you know of other cases that the U.S. government has made concessions and compromised its stance with regards to terrorist groups in order to pressure a foreign country with which it has been at odds? Overall, I want to know your idea about the U.S. double standards in regards to terrorism when it comes to groups such as MKO.

A: U.S. double standards exist only in the realm of public opinion. Behind closed doors, U.S. policy makers have a single standard – that of utility. The utility of a particular personality or group takes precedence over all other considerations. Public perception is often an afterthought, and as described previously, generally is handled by keeping the public in the dark about the true nature of America’s chosen proxies.

U.S. support of MKO is but one of many examples of this. As mentioned before, the U.S. has provided significant aid to Libya’s LIFG, which has in fact shifted many of its fighters and NATO-supplied weapons into Syria to wage the West’s proxy war there against the government of President Bashar al-Assad.

What many readers may not know is that LIFG and its various incarnations, has received, on record, support from British MI6 and America’s CIA for over 30 years, with the violence in Libya last year, and LIFG’s operations in Syria this year, being only the latest chapter in a long partnership with the West.

LIFG fighters were in the Afghan mountains in the 1980′s during the inception of the joint U.S.-Saudi terror front, Al Qaeda – yet another example of American-made and subsidized terrorism.

Sectarian extremists operating in Lebanon against Hezbollah, terrorists in Pakistan’s Baluchistan province, Jundallah, and extremists operating in Russia’s Caucasus region, are all examples of the U.S. supporting terrorist organizations to target and carry out violence against nations to either exact concessions or regime change.

It really isn’t that the West’s leadership is betraying their principles – they clearly have no such principles. Instead, what we are seeing is the West attempting to dress up its agenda and methods to legitimize what is clearly unacceptable behavior the West’s respective populations would otherwise never tolerate.

Q: And finally, what should be Iran’s response to this hostile decision made by the U.S. government? MKO has assassinated several high-ranking Iranian officials in the first years of Islamic Revolution, including former President, Prime Minister and judiciary chief, and several nuclear scientists in the recent years. Should Iran file a lawsuit against MKO in an international court?

A: This is a difficult but important question to answer. Iran’s government, its military and intelligence networks in particular, are in the best position to know the true impact of MKO’s activities and what capabilities they themselves possess with which to counter these activities. Raising public awareness both at home and abroad of who the MKO is and what they are doing would be a good start.

It is important to warn the public, police, and security forces regarding the tactics MKO terrorists employ – not only currently, but what their role will be if ever the West succeeds at triggering widespread unrest across Iran. It is very likely that MKO terrorists are already prepared to ignite violence at protests staged by Western-backed opposition groups. Just as the West has done against Syria, initially peaceful protests are targeted by Western-affiliated and trained gunmen, operating clandestinely from cover, targeting both their own protesters and security forces to ignite cascading violence. The resulting escalating violence will provide cover, just as it has done in Syria, for foreign militants to infiltrate and begin full-scale military operations against the government and its people.

Second, like any dangerous pest, it is necessary not only to simply swat at it when it draws near, but to identify the source from which it was spawned, and eliminate it. In MKO’s case, it has bases inside of Iraq. Working closer with Iraqi security forces to eliminate these bases would be a good start. Additionally, Iran, Russia, and China have been working together to create a united front against these clandestine organizations, and appropriately labeling them as terrorists. Expanding this effort and working with other nations suffering from covert destabilization to develop the tools to protect national sovereignty is also very important.

Currently, the greatest advantage the West has is a general state of global ignorance regarding the mechanics of covert destabilization and regime change, namely the use of foreign-funded NGOs, terror organizations, and foreign-backed opposition groups to strip away national sovereignty. A united front determined to raise awareness of these mechanics, while developing the operational capacity to counter them would steal from the West the cloak of secrecy and impunity they have operated behind for so long.

Finally, whether Iran files a lawsuit against MKO in an international court or not, depends on which court is being considered. It may be worth investigating the creation of an international court that exists beyond the influence of Western corporate-financier interests. For example, the International Criminal Court has been exposed many times as but a tool for executing Western foreign policy. To approach the ICC for any reason but to condemn its lack of integrity and legitimacy, only serves to perpetuate its existence and standings amongst global public opinion.

By Tony Cartalucci and Kourosh Ziabari

October 8, 2012 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

The impact of a misguided decision: delisting the MKO

The war on terror seems to be a tactical expression to rationalize the colonial intrusions of the US throughout the world. When in 2003, the Bush administration sought to justify its invasion on Iraq; they accused Saddam Hussein of sponsoring of international terrorism.

The big change in US approach towards terrorism of the very MKO indicates that for the US government, there’s no right or wrong, or legal or illegal, there’s just one question ‘are you with the US or against US?’

The US is clearly stating that if you disagree with us you deserve to be called “terrorist” or “state sponsor of terrorism”. This way, Obama administration makes one of its most risky decisions to antagonize the Iranians.

Now that the US has delisted an international terror group the MKO, there is no legal restriction to fund, arm and train it for insurgency operations against Iran.

Richard Silverstein writes on Guardian:”the delisting of the group is a sham. The Obama administration isn’t even claiming the MEK has renounced terrorism. If it did, it knows that it’s likely such a statement would rebound should the MEK’s activities become exposed.” He concludes that the MKO is useful in the covert war the US and Israel are waging against Iran’s nuclear program. [1]

What is confusing is that the US administration pretends to be engaging in negotiation but on the other hand their approach towards Islamic Republic is far from diplomacy.

Coleen Rowley of the Antiwar website describes the recent act of double standard by the US government as a “movie” that was seen before. He refers to previous CIA’s covert assistance to Mujahedin rebels in Afghanistan — who were recruited and trained by Osama Bin Laden- against Soviet Union.[2]

Using indirect aggression is nothing new in US foreign policy. Using drones and insurgency groups in Afghanistan, Libya, Yemen and the MKO in Iran are far more evidences of American ambivalence towards terrorism.

In his piece on the Guardian, Chris McGreal warns that since then the MKO’s multi-million campaign and supporters of People’s Mujahedin of Iran (MEK) are to press the Obama Administration to recognize it as the “legitimate opposition” to the Iranian government after the group is removed from the list of banned terrorist organizations in the coming days,” he writes.[3]

US politicians should know that legitimacy come from people. The MKO’s well funded lobbying campaign has spent too much to change its image from a violent cult of personality to a pro-democratic opposition movement. They may have been successful to manipulate western politicians but they do not represent Iranian people. Only the Iranians are qualified to give them the legitimacy they fail to have. Reza Marashi a former official of the State Department’s Iran Desk who is now a member of National Iranian American Council (NIAC) told McGreal:”The majority in the country know that these guys fought with Saddam Hussein during the Iran-Iraq war and they view them as traitors. During my time in Iran, and I’m still hearing this from people who are on the ground in Iran, there’s little to no support.”[4]

The delisting of the MKO, with its long history of bombings, murders, treason cult-like practices and human rights abuses might have destructive impacts. Lajos Szasdi, an international affairs analyst who was interviewed by RT , explains the inevitable results of such a decision: ”It is going to in any case, work to the detriment of the relationship between the West and Iran, and in particular the United States. It is going to favor taking hardening positions towards the West and the United States. I think it is quite inevitable in light of the rhetoric coming from Washington, alongside that coming from Tel Aviv regarding Iran and the Iranian nuclear program. It might not make much difference, but it certainly is going to be ammunition for those who would try to suppress the idea of any dialogue with Washington, because after all ,Washington is not offering any olive branch for such kind of dialogue”.[5]

As a matter of fact, one thing is for sure. The US –Israeli lobbies are entirely misled if they want to preserve the MKO as a viable alternative to the government in Tehran. They will never be able to advance this goal as millions of Iranians never remove the MKO from the list of terrorist cultist traitors they have maintained in their historical memory.

They never want the democracy which is brought by a bunch of power-thirsty traitors who murdered their own countrymen to obey their paymasters such as Saddam Hussein or Netanyahu.

By Mazda Parsi

References:
[1]Silverstein, Richard, Terror delisting the MEK is a cynical sham, the guardian, September22, 2012
[2]Rowley, Coleen, Our (New) Terrorists’ the MEK: Have We Seen This Movie Before? , Antiwar.com.September28, 2012
[3]McGreal, Chris, MEK supporters push for recognition by US as official Iranian opposition, the Guardian, September28,2012
[4]ibid
[5]RT.co, lobbying campaign takes Iranian dissident group off US terror list, September 29, 2012

October 7, 2012 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Five Points About Removal Of MeK From US Terror Blacklist

The recent announcement by the United States Department of State about removing the notorious Mujahedin-e Khalq (MeK) Organization from its blacklist of terrorist organizations on September 28, 2012, has been followed by many analytical accounts. They ranged from many media analyses provided by the Western and Iranian experts who were opposed to the decision, to admiring accounts by former American politicians. The proponents of the move among former US politicians were mostly those whose palms had been greased by the MeK through accepting hefty financial contributions from the organization. They had, therefore, organized extensive campaigns and lobbies across the United States in order to take the name of the organization out of the list of terrorist organizations.

Iran
This article does not actually mean to put renewed emphasis on this grave mistake which has been committed by the US government. It is already too late and the United States has provided the group with considerable maneuvering room. (A secondary point here: given the behavior of the Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and its government in the past years, especially in the past few months, it is almost certain that Ottawa will soon remove the MeK from its list of terrorist organizations in order not to lag behind the United States and the European countries in this regard!)

This paper only means to remind Western politicians of a few characteristics of this terrorist organization as defined by firsthand Western sources. Let’s hope that this would help the Americans to realize that delisting the MeK is not just a simple delisting of an organization from the long list of 52 organizations designated as terrorist entities by the US Department of State. This delisting, however, will have consequences and implications which may prove to be quite different from what they may seem at a first glance.

1. The issue of weird and cult-like conduct of the leaders of this organization and their bizarre treatment of other members has been acknowledged by many Western sources. A special case was a report released by RAND (Research and Development) Corporation in 2009, entitled “The Mujahedin-e Khalq in Iraq: A Policy Conundrum,” (1) in which a special part had been dedicated to “Cultic Characteristics of the MeK.” Under that title, the report says, “… [MeK’s] subsequent exile undermined its optimism and openness. In France, Masoud Rajavi dramatically changed the nature of the organization. In 1985, he announced that Maryam Azodanlu, the wife of his close associate Mehdi Abrishamchi and the younger sister of a senior MeK member, would assume the position of MeK co-leader. Rajavi divorced his second wife, the daughter of former Iranian president, Abol-Hasan Banisadr, Rajavi’s ally, and announced that Maryam would divorce her husband and marry him. These actions would advance a new “ideological revolution.”

The Rajavis claimed that their new revolution was meant to highlight the equality of women, an idea that the IRI [Islamic Republic of Iran] found threatening. Although the MeK did promote women to leadership positions, which constituted a reversal of tradition in Iranian society, the marriage and the subsequent aggrandizement of Masoud Rajavi’s leadership role marked the beginning of an organizational transformation into a cult of personality. Initial changes included increased mandated study, enforced communal living arrangements, and imposed supervision of the group’s membership in exile throughout Europe.”

Elsewhere in the same document, it says, “After the MeK moved to Iraq in 1986, the Rajavis created the NLA [National Liberation Army], which included nearly the entire MeK contingent in Iraq, and they used its militaristic structure to consolidate their control.

Following the failure of Operation Eternal Light, the Rajavis initiated a series of policy changes that continued the transformation of the increasingly insular organization into a cult. While rarely admitting total failure, Rajavi implied in his speeches that the operation had not achieved its goals due to insufficient devotion to the overthrow of the IRI among the MeK rank and file, who were instead distracted by sexual interests as a result of their coeducational housing. To enforce a new “military” discipline, rank-and-file members were instructed not just to move into gender-segregated housing but also to divorce their spouses, maintain complete celibacy, and even cut off communication with friends and family, both within and beyond MeK compounds. Love for the Rajavis was to replace love for spouses and family. In addition, the Rajavis used funding provided by Saddam to construct self-sufficient camps that included schools, medical clinics, training centers, and prisons (often called “reeducation centers”) so that the population had little need for contact with the society beyond its walls.”

Three years after the RAND report was released, that behavior still continues within the ranks of the organization. Many examples of it can be found in the weblogs run by ex-members who have succeeded to escape the clutches of this organization. The authors of the RAND report have also noted in the conclusion part of their report that, “MeK leaders and supporters … allege that former MeK members and critics of the MeK are either Iranian agents or their dupes. However, interviews with US military and civilian officials, information voluntarily furnished by former MeK members at the ARC, and visits to Camp Ashraf suggest that these denials are not credible.”

2. The MeK is also no favorite with major human rights organizations. A great number of documents on frequent instances of human rights violations within the ranks of this cultic organization can be found here: Human Rights Watch, No Exit: Human Rights Abuses inside the MKO Camps, New York, May 2005.

3. The United States, put the MeK, or as better known in Iran as ‘Monafeqin (hypocrites)’, on its list of terrorist organizations in 1997 and delisted them in 2012. The Council of Europe also listed the MeK as a terrorist organization in 2001 and delisted it in 2009. Britain, likewise, put the MeK on its terror list in 2001 and delisted it in 2008. Such periods of being “listed” and “delisted” have been seldom repeated for any other terrorist organization. Many such organizations have stayed on the terrors lists of the United States, the UK, or the European Union for many long years. It would be very ridiculous to assume that this development followed a decision by members of this group to really give up terrorism, regret their past deeds and try to go for more democratic approaches. Therefore no other explanation for this measure may occur to an analyst, except for the direct role of political decisions and expediencies, topped by the decision to use the MeK as a means of exerting pressure on Iran. The independent observers have, as such, considered this issue as a proof to the fact that the United States’ judiciary is not a truly independent power.

4. Last year, the UN special rapporteur on human rights for Iran, Ahmed Shaheed, submitted his first report to the UN Human Rights Council in which had had pointed to 17,000 names given to him by an Iranian nongovernmental organization in writing as the names of those killed in terrorist operations by the MeK. The Iranian nation will never forget two facts about this group. The first fact is countless cases of blind assassinations carried out by MeK members in early post-revolution years which were mostly carried out by members of this group in desolate streets and places and targeted people who were only suspected of being connected in some way to the nascent establishment of the Islamic Republic. They included many shoemakers, workers, bakers, teachers and civil servants. The second fact is their unbridled cooperation with the former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein during his imposed war against Iran. Without a doubt, it will be impossible for the Iranian nation, regardless of their political tendencies for or against the Islamic establishment, to imagine that the United States does not consider this group as a terrorist group anymore.

5. From 2003 onward and after this terrorist group lost its support from Saddam, its members lived in limbo at Camp Ashraf. The internal cult-like rules of the organization considered escaping to Iran by its members as a great treachery which was punishable by death. However, since 2005, many of them have returned to Iran voluntarily and through mediation of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). Perhaps, removing the MeK from the US Department of State’s list of terrorist organizations will make it possible for its members to interact more freely with the ICRC, or return to their families in Iran with more ease. In that case and if the MeK actually decided to stop its overt activities as well as covert terrorist operations against Iran and accept a more democratic structure in order not to be listed as a terrorist organization again, it would perhaps die in a few years. The reason is that the MeK owes its identity to its strange, clichéd, cultic, and inflexible rules and any kind of compromise in that regard will totally change its identity. There is a Persian proverb which says that “at times a remedy works just the opposite of what it is intended to do.”

By Mahmoud Reza Golshanpazhooh Executive Editor of Iran Review , Eurasia Review

Notes:

(1) http://www.rand.org/pubs/monographs/MG871.html

October 6, 2012 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Obama’s terrorist-list blunder

The French diplomatic genius Charles Maurice de Talleyrand once said: "It was worse than a crime; it was a mistake." This is perhaps the best way to describe the US State Department’s Obama's terrorist-list blunder recent decision to take the Mujahadeen-e-Khalq (MEK) off its notorious list of 52 foreign terrorist organizations. It was yet another setback in the negotiations between Iran and the West on the former’s nuclear program.

It is one of those cynical moves that will only exacerbate an already unfavorable diplomatic atmosphere, suffering from a dearth of goodwill and mutual trust. Iran and the US are already stuck in a dangerous game of chicken: Washington is pressing its advantage by increasingly tightening the noose around Iran’s economy, while Tehran is relentlessly pushing the boundaries of its nuclear-enrichment capabilities toward a fait accompli. Both sides are in essence locked in a precarious form of brinkmanship, bringing the world closer to a devastating confrontation. The Persian Gulf has been witnessing increased military tensions in recent months, with both the US and Iran fortifying their military presence and stepping up their military activities.

Meanwhile, sanctions have been biting into Iran’s increasingly vulnerable economy, embittering the Iranian population toward the West, especially the US. Instead of reaching out to the Iranian people, as he repeatedly promised, US President Barack Obama is not only imposing what can be termed in international law as collective punishment, but also accommodating an organization that most Iranians identify with treachery and deceit.

Obviously, the current deadlock could only be broken through sustained and meaningful diplomacy. However, diplomatic efforts have been in a protracted state of hiatus, with the Iranians postponing any major agreement until the US overcomes its cyclical diplomatic handicap – the inability to make a decisive and lasting concession until the conclusion of the presidential election.

The MEK decision is also a classic example of how domestic politics can derail high-stake diplomacy, with the fate of international security hanging in the balance. To secure his re-election bid, President Obama is trying hard to look tough on Iran. But what Obama ignores is how his short-term political calculations may carry long-term risks vis-a-vis the Iranian nuclear issue.

An ambivalent decision
The delisting of the MEK came ahead of a court-ordered October deadline, with US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton sending a classified document to Congress earlier, detailing her department’s position on the matter.

In 1997, the State Department placed the MEK on its Foreign Terrorist Organizations List for its history of terrorist activities, especially against US citizens in the 1970s. However, ironically, Washington protected the MEK members in Iraq’s Camp Ashraf after toppling Saddam Hussein, the organization’s main patron. Later, when the group came under increasing pressure – ahead of US troop withdrawal – by the Tehran-backed government in Baghdad, Washington opposed any violent crackdown on the camp, while exploring means to transfer MEK members elsewhere. Finally, amid a logistical headache and rising political noise, Washington transferred some of the 3,000-strong MEK militia to Camp Liberty, a former US military base near Baghdad International Airport.

The State Department justified its delisting of the MEK on the grounds that the organization has publicly renounced violence, cooperated in the closure of Camp Ashraf, and has shunned terrorism for more than a decade.

Crucially, the move came in the midst of continuous vilification of Iran as an imminent nuclear threat that should be met with force, a narrative enthusiastically espoused by a wide spectrum ranging from hawkish Republicans in the US Congress to pundits in the mainstream media as well as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (and his powerful friends in the Israel lobby in the US). Netanyahu has already called for an explicit "red line" against Iran’s nuclear program, coaxing Washington to place the military option squarely on the table.

However, it is not clear whether Washington actually sees the MEK as a possible asset and a viable ally in the event of direct confrontation with Iran as the window for a diplomatic compromise rapidly narrows. The delisting was perhaps just an effort to annoy Tehran or, more important, to appease the anti-Iran establishment amid the current US presidential election campaign.

For its proponents, the recent move was just a logical extension of a broader Western accommodation of an organization that claims to represent the "legitimate democratic opposition" in Iran. Britain delisted the MEK back in 2008 and the European Union a year later. The group has significant presence in such places as Paris, which hosts its headquarters, and has staged major rallies in the French capital.

Maryam Rajavi, the organization’s Paris-based leader, welcomed the US move by stating: "This has been the correct decision, albeit long overdue, in order to remove a major obstacle in the path of the Iranian people’s efforts for democracy."

Anti-Iran hawks in the US hardly held back their enthusiasm. Republican Representative Dana Rohrabacher expressed his joy with the decision, because he believes "the MEK are Iranians who desire a secular, peaceful and democratic government", while Ted Poe, Republican member of the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee, described the decision as "long overdue".

The decision is a culmination of years of lavish and aggressive lobbying by the MEK – boosted by growing support from rich Iranian-American exiles opposed to the regime in Tehran – directed at (current and former) top US officials and leaders from both the Democratic and Republican camps.

The MEK spent US$1.5 million alone to hire three leading Washington lobby firms. It channeled millions of dollars in "speaking fees" to sympathetic American officials and leaders who graced the MEK’s high-profile events, rallies and campaign gatherings calling for the State Department to delist the organization.

The list of top-notch supporters is astonishing. The former Democratic governor of Pennsylvania, Ed Rendell, has been among the group’s biggest beneficiaries, reportedly receiving up to $150,000 in speaking fees. For the Republican chairwoman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the figure stands at around $20,000. Former presidential candidates from both the Republican and Democratic parties, namely Bill Richardson, Howard Dean and Rudolf Giuliani, have also joined the fray.

With the speaking-engagement fees running in the territory of $15,000-$30,000, former top security/intelligence officials, namely ex-Federal Bureau of Investigation director Louis Freeh, former Central Intelligence Agency directors Porter Goss and James Woolsey, and Obama’s former national security adviser General James Jones, have lent their support too. Even Wesley Clark, a former North Atlantic Treaty Organization commander, is among the elite supporters.

What is clear is that the Obama administration has found it increasingly difficult to ignore an organization that has astutely exploited growing cynicism against Iran, staged numerous rallies and vigils outside the State Department, organized huge sit-ins in congressional hearings, and rallied the support of leading US figures. The administration has finally succumbed to the pressure. But this domestic concession could carry significant costs in the broader multilateral efforts to resolve the Iranian nuclear conundrum.

Potential diplomatic fallout
In the initial years of the Islamic Revolution, its supporters had to contend with the MEK, an organization founded on an eclectic Marxist-Islamist-nationalist ideology, as a major rival in determining the fate of the new Islamic Republic. After all, during the 1979 revolution, the MEK was among the major players within the broad coalition of forces that deposed the Shah. After a series of violent confrontations in the immediate post-revolutionary years, a severely weakened MEK lost whatever measure of popular legitimacy it enjoyed when it sided with Saddam Hussein against Iran during the eight-year "imposed war" (Jang-e-Tahmili).

After its expulsion from Iran, much of its paramilitary capability was concentrated in Iraq, under the generous sponsorship of the Baathist regime. So it practically lost any significant presence within Iran. The MEK is an organization with few to no roots within Iran’s political landscape, so it is not clear how it could play a critical role in changing that landscape and/or Tehran’s nuclear posture to America’s advantage. This is precisely why successive US administrations have instead reached out to reformist elements within Iran, never seeing the MEK as a viable ally.

It must be noted that Washington’s 1997 decision to include the MEK in the list of terrorist organizations was part of its nascent diplomatic outreach to the newly empowered reformist government in Tehran under president Mohammad Khatami. After all, inclusion of groups in the Foreign Terrorist Organization list has been generally arbitrary, simply tuned to America’s short-term strategic interests.

In recent years the Obama administration, at least rhetorically, sided with Iran’s so-called Green Movement – a loose network of forces composed of certain reformist leaders and disenchanted sections of the society – that formed the backbone of post-election protests in 2009. However, there have never been institutionalized channels of communication between Washington and Iran’s leading reformists. So it seems that accommodating the MEK is somehow a desperate effort to build ties with alternative Iranian elements explicitly opposed to the regime.

Yet there may have been even more concrete reasons. Reports suggesting increased intelligence and security cooperation between the MEK on the one hand and Israeli and US agencies on the other in recent years provide the strongest hint behind Washington’s decision to delist the group.

In 2002, an MEK-affiliate group, the National Council of Resistance in Iran, revealed a laptop containing confidential information about Iran’s burgeoning enrichment activities in Natanz and Arak. Since the MEK does not possess an independent and credible intelligence-gathering capacity, it is widely believed that Israeli intelligence agencies were behind the leaked documents. The revelation marked the beginning of a decade of tense nuclear negotiations between Iran and world powers, which precipitated a severe set of sanctions and repeated threats of military intervention against Tehran.

In April this year, leading investigative journalist Seymour Hersh reported that back in 2005, the Nevada-based Joint Special Operations Command trained "Iranians associated with the MEK" as part of the George W Bush administration’s broader "global war on terror". Commentators have also suggested that various Western intelligence agencies, especially Israel’s Mossad, have been working closely with the MEK in a "shadow war" ranging from sabotage against Iran’s key military and oil facilities to the assassination of Iranian nuclear scientists and sabotage of nuclear installations.

Understandably, the Iranian authorities immediately lashed out against Washington’s decision to delist one of its most long-standing nemeses. Iran holds the MEK responsible for at least 12,000 deaths, including high-profile members of the regime in the early years of the revolution. Iranian state television accused the US of double standards by supporting "good terrorists" who serve its interests by working against Iran and its nuclear program. The Iranian Foreign Ministry warned that the decision would put on the US "responsibility for past, present and future terrorist operations by this group", just as Rajavi expressed her hopes that the delisting "will lead to the expansion of anti-regime activities within Iran".

Negotiations on the nuclear program are already in bad shape. Despite repeated overtures by Tehran – from decreasing enrichment activities to the 3-5% territory, to shipping out its stockpile of high-enriched uranium, and opening up of its whole nuclear infrastructure for inspection – to resolve the standoff, the Obama administration has repeatedly refused to meet Iran’s two basic demands: (1) An unequivocal recognition of Iran’s enrichment rights under the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT); and (2) reversal of unilateral sanctions battering Iran’s entire economy.

Obama’s accommodation of the MEK will further undermine its nuclear diplomacy toward Iran. It will do nothing but strengthen the hands of Iranian hardliners – at the expense of pro-diplomacy pragmatists – who have called for a withdrawal from the NPT, an increase of enrichment levels to 60%, and preparations for a military confrontation with the West.

Beyond regime insiders, the Obama administration has also alienated ordinary Iranians and opposition elements who detest the MEK and view the latest move as another cynical ploy to retard Iran’s scientific progress and bring the country to its knees.

Richard Javad Heydarian is a Manila-based foreign-affairs analyst. He has reported for or been quoted in The Diplomat, UPI, Foreign Policy, Tehran Times, Russia Today and Foreign Policy In Focus, among others.

By Richard Javad Heydarian

October 6, 2012 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Iranian terrorist group now freedom fighters, in U.S. eyes

Hillary Clinton announces anti-Tehran group People’s Mujahedeen of Iran is no longer on State Department’s list of terror organizations
Iranian terrorist group now freedom fighters, in U.S. eyes
In Washington, it seems, the difference between a terrorist and a freedom fighter is a multimillion-dollar public relations campaign.

Last week, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced that the anti-Tehran group People’s Mujahedeen of Iran (MEK) will no longer be designated a terrorist group after having been placed on the American list 15 years ago for killing U.S. servicemen.

The administration’s change of heart comes after the MEK said it renounced violence in 2003 and recently got the backing of a U.S. Federal Court, which said it has seen no evidence the group is still involved in terrorist activities.

But Clinton’s decision, in part a response to the court’s finding, also comes after a multimillion-dollar campaign on behalf of MEK that has seen a long list of former senior officials and current members of Congress paid lavish fees to make speeches or appearances at MEK functions promoting an end to its terrorist status.

Among those who have been paid to speak on behalf of the MEK’s cause are former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, former U.S. attorney-general Michael Mukasey, former White House chief of staff Andrew Card, and former U.S. home-land security chief Tom Ridge.

Among those from the U.S. military who have put in appearances are former chair-man of the Joint Chiefs Peter Pace, former Supreme Allied Commander in Europe Wesley Clark, and President Barack Obama’s former national security adviser James Jones.

Former Central Intelligence Agency chiefs James Woolsey, Porter Goss and Michael Hayden have also been paid to speak on MEK platforms.

This, along with unresolved questions about whether MEK has indeed renounced violence – and if so, how recently? – raises the spectre that the Obama administration may be so keen to back Iranian groups opposed to the Tehran regime of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei that it is not looking too carefully at their credentials or records.

Still fresh in Washington memories is the part Ahmed Chalabi played in feeding false or distorted information about his Iraqi homeland to the receptive audience within the administration of President George W. Bush. As the United States found out after the 2003 invasion of Iraq, there weren’t any weapons of mass destruction, and the invading troops were not welcomed as liberators.

It seems unlikely that the Obama administration would fall for the same kind of blarney from the somewhat sinister husband-and-wife team of Massoud and Maryam Rajavi, who, if several U.S. government reports are to be believed, run MEK as a personality cult complete with brainwashing, brutal internal discipline, and the indoctrination of children.

If Obama is not about to be stampeded into war with Iran by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – with the aim of stopping the Tehran regime acquiring the ability to make nuclear weapons – he is unlikely to be impressed by the Rajavis.

Indeed, the history and record of the MEK is so tainted that taking it off the list of terrorist groups will likely do the reputation of the Obama administration no good among the main-stream reformist movement in Iran.

MEK was founded in 1965 by a group of university students as a Marxist Muslim opposition to the Shah of Iran.

Its first terrorist attacks were in 1971, and MEK made special targets of Americans, who were instrumental in keeping the Shah in power.

In 1973, U.S. army Col. Louis Lee Hawkins was shot and killed outside his home in Tehran. In 1975, two U.S. air force officers were killed in an attack on their car. And in 1976, three employees of Rockwell Inter-national were also shot and killed.

MEK joined enthusiastically in the 1979 revolution that ousted the Shah and brought the Islamic Republic to power. The group actively sup-ported the takeover of the U.S. embassy after the coup and the keeping of American diplomats as hostages.

But MEK quickly fell out with the new leader, Ayatollah Khomeini, and killed several of his senior officials in bomb attacks.

In 1986, MEK moved its headquarters to Iraq, where it came under the patronage of Saddam Hussein, fighting for him in his war against Iran and playing a lead role in his murderous campaigns against the Iraqi Kurds.

About 3,000 of the remaining MEK members in Iraq are now in a former American camp outside Baghdad awaiting placement in third countries.

MEK’s attempts to rehabilitate its image started in 2002, when it says it gave the U.S. and its allies the first information about Iran’s nuclear development program.

However, New Yorker magazine journalist Seymour Hersh says that the then-head of the United Nations’ nuclear watch-dog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed ElBaradei, told him that the information about Iran’s nuclear program came from the Israeli government and was only channelled through MEK. Much of the evidence of MEK’s continued involvement in violence is circumstantial at best, but one persistent story is that the group’s operatives are working for the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad inside Iran.

In particular, there are many claims that the five Iranian nuclear scientists assassinated since 2007 and the destruction of a missile research centre were operations conducted by MEK for Mossad.

By Jonathan Manthorpe

October 4, 2012 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Removing Radical MEK Group from Terrorist List a Cynical Decision

Take a large dollop of Washington influence buying, a portion of hypocrisy and a dash of duplicity. Stir them in the cauldron of a presidential campaign and heat them with national security rhetoric. That’s the recipe that produced what looks like one of the most cynical decisions in current American policy.

No, I do not mean the debate over the US debt. I am talking about a more arcane matter — the removal of an Iranian opposition movement from the State Department’s list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTO).

A few facts may be helpful, since most Americans know little or nothing about this curious decision. Even the numerous members of Congress and high ranking former US officials who backed it showed an apparent disregard for the facts.

The MEK, or Mujahedeen Khalq, was founded by Iranian students in the 1960s as a radical group that combined some of the worst aspects of Marxism and Islamic fanaticism, plus violent anti-Americanism. After helping to overthrow the Shah, they fought a bloody struggle with the Ayatollahs who seized power and murdered a number of them in terrorist explosions.

Expelled from their country, they eventually accepted the hospitality of Saddam Hussein, Iran’s aggressive neighbor who armed and used them against Iran. Most Iranians saw that as an act of treachery and still despise the MEK even more than they do their own government.

The Mujahadeen ran their camp in Iraq as tightly as a North Korean gulag. Couples were forced to divorce. Children were sent abroad. Sex was forbidden. It was, in effect, an extremist cult, devoted to its leaders

The State Department put the MEK on the Foreign Terrorist Organization list in 1997 because of their involvement in acts of terrorism including hostage taking and killing of several Americans.

In one of the slickest and most effective PR campaigns Washington has seen in years, the MEK has hired high-priced Washington lobbying firms, funnelled money through speech contracts and literally bought its removal from the terrorist list.

The list of supporters they recruited includes former US four-star generals, intelligence chiefs, governors and political heavyweights, according to a special investigation by the Christian Science Monitor.

The Monitor reported: “Many of these high-ranking US officials – who represent the full political spectrum — have been paid tens of thousands of dollars to speak in support of the MEK.”

They included General Peter Pace, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani and former US Homeland security chief Tom Ridge. For a more complete list of those who spoke at pro-MEK conferences and rallies, see the full Monitor story. Not all of them took the money, but all of them drank the MEK Kool-Aid in the belief that delisting them was good for America — or in the case of some such as Harvard Professor Alan Dershowitz, apparently also good for Israel.

The Monitor noted, “They rarely mention the MEK’s violent anti-American past, and portray the group not as terrorists but as freedom fighters with “values just like us,” as democrats-in-waiting ready to serve as a vanguard of regime change in Iran. Some acknowledge that they knew little about the group before they were invited to speak and were coached by MEK supporters.”

The MEK even corralled a few journalists, including Carl Bernstein of Watergate fame, who took $12,000 to speak at a Waldorf Astoria meeting of MEK supporters, but explained later to ProPublica, “I was not there as an advocate.” Another prominent journalist who should have known better was syndicated columnist Clarence Page who spoke at a large MEK rally in Paris. After that was reported by ProPublica, he said he would reimburse the $20,000, and was reprimanded by the Chicago Tribune for violating its ethic code.

The concept of the terrorist list is highly political and riddled with hypocrisy. As pointed out by Foreign Policy Magazine, “some groups are designated for the right reasons (terrorism) and others are not labelled, despite clearly meeting the statute’s requirements.

For example, Saddam Hussein was put on the terrorist list when he was allied with Moscow in the 1960s, taken off in the 1980s when Washington wanted to him help him attack Iran, and put back on again later when the US wanted to attack Iraq. And in each instance, this was the same Saddam, a brutal Iraqi leader with a horrible human rights and war crimes record.

The MEK declares that it has been out of the terrorism business for almost a decade, but there is no reason to believe it. NBC News reported in February that the MEK has been assassinating Iranian nuclear scientists in broad daylight. There are numerous reports of collaboration between the MEK and Israel’s secret services. “The enemy of my enemy is my friend,” as the old saying goes.

Although it is a federal felony to give aid, direct or indirect, to an organization on the Foreign Terrorist List, Seymour Hersh of The New Yorker reports that the US Joint Special Operations Command conducted training of members of the MEK in Nevada from 2005 until sometime before President Obama took office. It was done secretly of course.

This would not be the first time the United States has made a mistake in the name of national security. Arming so-called Islamic freedom fighters to fight against the Soviets in Afghanistan was a spectacular example of chickens that eventually came home to roost. Helping the MEK is small stuff by comparison. The group has almost no support inside Iran, and not much outside.

That’s a good thing. God only knows what kind of Iran they would create if they could actually take over the country.

By Tom Fenton,GlobalPost

October 4, 2012 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Who is Whose Terrorist?

Have you ever thought of the term ‘terrorist’ or the meaning of ‘democracy’? Thanks to the Internet, it may be easy to search and try to find the meanings of these words. Just compare their definitions with what is in practice these days. Whoever is against US or Israeli regime is considered to be a ‘terrorist’, ‘supporter of terrorism’, or ‘undemocratic’. Even if they are fighting for basic human rights, their life, honor, dignity, land or even if they were elected by a majority of their people.

Ironically, the most well-known terrorist groups are hand cooked by western intelligence services. Even drug cartels are controlled by their intelligence agencies. If you follow up any kind of black activity in the world from smuggling drugs, weapons, human beings (women, children), and human body parts to money laundering, killings and bombings all around the world, it is impossible not to find Israelis or Americans involved in them. Only those who are not in the circle are arrested and punished.

Watching American mafia movies could take you into a sphere of what is happening in the world. Those bands have developed into terrorist groups all around the world. When it was needed, Al-Qaeda was established to carry out terrorist acts against innocent people in Afghanistan. You never heard about their crimes when Al-Qaeda and Taliban were playing into the hands of Americans. Then an attack on innocent Americans is planned to justify America’s invasion of Afghanistan. Later, we see that drug production in this country goes up more than ten-fold.
Same thing happens around the world. In Iraq, Libya, Yemen, and Syria Al-Qaeda is back in the America’s circle. It receives tax payers’ money and weapons to implement American policies around the world. Likewise, the Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO) terrorist sect is a copycat of Al-Qaeda. When it was formed, the UK, US, Israel, France and Iraq helped it against the shah’s regime which was considered to be their ally.

By Emad Abshenass Chief Editor of Iran Daily

October 2, 2012 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Delisting MKO: U.S. shooting the last bolt

In an attempt which can be seen as the newest effort to put pressure on Iran and push it toward isolation, the United States removed the name of exiled anti-Iranian group Mujahedin-e-Khalq (MKO) from its list of foreign terrorist organizations.

The move which astounded the world and came as a great surprise to many Iranians is apparently one of the last cards which the U.S. has decided to play in order to isolate Iran, derail its international position and undermine its growing power in the Middle East.

MKO is said to be responsible for the killing of more than 40,000 Iranians following the Islamic Revolution of 1979. They have assassinated several high-ranking Iranian officials including former President Mohammad Ali Rajaei, Prime Minister Mohammad Javad Bahonar and judiciary chief Ayatollah Mohammad Beheshti. In the recent years, they have also cooperated with Mossad and CIA in assassinating Iran’s nuclear scientists in a bid to thwart Iran’s scientific progress and ruin its peaceful nuclear program.

American investigative journalists Seymour Hersh and Glenn Greenwald have revealed in some of their articles that MKO has received training, funding and military equipment from the United States, Israel and even Saudi Arabia.

Some of the defected members of MKO such as Qorban Ali Husseini Nezhad and Maryam Sanjabi who fled Camp Ashraf since last year revealed the underground ties between MKO and Saddam Hussein, and the U.S. government after the occupation of Iraq in 2003.

MKO is extremely unpopular among the Iranians, even among those who live abroad. The atrocities this group has committed seem to be unforgivable, and although the Iranian government has always demanded that the members of MKO return to the country to be put on a fair trial and even enjoy Islamic clemency, they refused to leave their horrendous cult.

Being headed by the Paris-based Maryam Rajavi, this group has not only killed hundreds of Iranians during the 8 years of war which Saddam Hussein imposed on Iran, but has also spilled the bloods of many Iraqis and even high-ranking U.S. military officials such as Lieutenant Colonel Louis Lee Hawkins, Colonel Paul Shaffer and Lieutenant Colonel Jack Turner.

The terrorist operations carried out by this Western-funded organization have been widely discussed even by the U.S. mainstream media, but it’s not clear that how the American government will justify its controversial and bizarre decision in delisting MKO.

MKO has demonstrated that it does not show mercy even to its own members, and reports have leaked to the media on how the high-ranking MKO officials have mistreated and threatened the low-level members of the organization so as to dissuade them from escaping or giving up their mission.

According to the American journalist Tony Cartalucci, former MKO members have revealed that the organization bans marriage, use of radios, internet and holds many members against their will with the threat of death if ever they are caught attempting to escape. It also uses dangerous psychological methods to brainwash the members and make them committed to "martyrdom" for the sake of the group’s objectives, holding them obedient and compliant to the orders of their major commanders.

In the recent years, MKO spent millions of dollars in order to persuade the neo-conservative members of the Congress to lobby for the delisting of the organization. Some of the prominent figures in the U.S. who have voiced their support to this organization simply because of its opposition to the Iranian government include the New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani, former FBI Director Louis Freeh, retired General Wesley Clark, former Obama National Security Adviser General James Jones and American Jewish lawyer Alan Dershowitz.

The removal of MKO’s name from the list of foreign terrorist organizations allows this organization to follow its anti-Iranian policies under the umbrella of a peaceful civilian group. The senior figures in the group have constantly announced that their ultimate goal is a regime change in Iran, and from now on, they will have the official and unrestricted backing and support of the U.S. government toward this end.

Although nothing about the nature and reality of MKO changes by removing its name from the U.S. Department of State’s list of foreign terrorist organizations, it is now clear that the United States has never been sincere in its claims of being opposed to terrorism.

The U.S. politicians divide the terrorists into two groups: friendly terrorists and bad terrorists. Of course MKO falls under the first category and the recent decision made by the U.S. government is a testimony that it’s not terrorism and violence which the White House is truly concerned about. MKO will be exempted from accountability before the international community because of the felonies it has committed in the past three decades, simply because it strides on a path which the White House likes. This is nothing but a flagrant parade of double standards.

Kourosh Ziabari

October 2, 2012 0 comments

Iran

Iran condemns US for ‘double standards’ over MEK terror de-listing

Iranian state TV claims Washington is using the group – which the US removed from its terrorism list – to work against Tehran
Iran condemns US for'double standards' over MEK terror de-listing
Iran condemned on Saturday the Obama administration for taking an Iranian militant group formerly allied with Saddam Hussein off the US terrorism list, saying it shows Washington’s "double standards."

The People’s Mujahedin of Iran (MEK), which began as a guerrilla movement fighting Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the last shah of Iran, helped overthrow Pahlavi in 1979 then quickly fell out with Iran’s first leader, Ayatollah Khomeini. The MEK fought in the 1980s alongside Saddam’s forces in the eight-year Iran-Iraq war but disarmed after the US invasion of Iraq in 2003.

The state department de-listed the group on Friday, meaning that any assets the MEK has in the United States are unblocked and Americans can do business with the organization.

Iranian state TV criticized the decision, saying that the US considered the MEK "good terrorists" and claims Washington is using the group to work against Tehran. State radio said the move highlights President Barack Obama’s anti-Iranian sentiments.

"There are numerous evidence of the group being involved in terrorist activities. De-listing them shows America’s double standard policy on terrorism," state TV said. The US distinguishes between "good and bad terrorists" and the MEK are now "good terrorists because the US is using them against Iran," the report also said, adding that Washington and Israel use the group to spy on Iran’s nuclear program.

The US and its allies accuse Iran of using its civilian nuclear program as a cover to develop nuclear weapons. Iran has denied the claims, saying its nuclear program is peaceful and is intended for electricity generation and scientific research.

The state department said the MEK hasn’t committed terror for more than a decade. The group has also complied with demands that more than 3,000 of its once-armed members abandon their base in Iraq near the Iranian border for a camp outside Baghdad, an essential step to ending their decades-long presence in Iraq.

The group claims it is seeking regime change in Iran through peaceful means with an aim to replace the clerical rule in Tehran with a secular government.

However, a senior state department official suggested that removing MEK from the US terrorist list does not translate into a shared common front against Iran. The official said Washington does not view MEK as an opposition movement that can promote democratic values in Iran. The official on Friday briefed reporters on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to speak publicly on the matter.

Iran says MEK is responsible for the deaths of more than 12,000 Iranians over the past three decades, including senior government officials.

The MEK spent huge sums of money over years lobbying for removal from the US terror list, holding rallies in European capitals and elsewhere that featured luminaries like former homeland security secretary Tom Ridge from the Bush administration. Former House speaker and presidential candidate Newt Gingrich was among those recently welcomed by the MEK to Paris.

The group was protected in Iraq under Saddam Hussein, but its members are disliked by the new Iraqi government, dominated by Shia Muslims like those in Iran.

The United States had insisted the MEK’s members leave Camp Ashraf, their home in Iraq, as a condition for removal from the terrorist list. All but several hundred militants are now located in Camp Liberty, a former US base outside Baghdad, looking for placement in third countries.

The MEK was removed from the European Union’s terrorist list in 2009.
guardian.co.uk, Saturday 29 September 2012

October 2, 2012 0 comments

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